#wimseyverse

[oldshrewsburyian]

I asked your opinion back in November about what order to read the Lord Peter Wimsey series when starting at Gaudy Night, and I finally finished Busman's Honeymoon! I've been savoring them and reading other things between, but have throughly enjoyed the series!

Thank you for your advice! Figured you might like to know how I got on.

Oh, I'm so pleased to know this! I think it's such a beautifully crafted end to the series.

[oldshrewsburyian]

L . A stolen kiss, Lord Peter, please and thank you. Throw in

G. A fistfight, if it amuses you. :-)

Thanks for the prompt! I'm afraid the emphasis got rather out of order, but I hope you enjoy this double drabble.

*

“What is a devastating uppercut, Peter?”

Lord Peter Wimsey paused in the act of lighting his pipe, and after a moment’s stillness, threw his match into the fireplace. “If one may inquire, does your perplexity arise from the degree of devastation, or on the nature of an uppercut?”

“The latter. There’s also,” continued Harriet, slewing around in her chair, “the question of why it always seems to be devastating, in a certain kind of fiction.”

“Into which realms you are now venturing?”

“Experimentally, at least.”

“Hm. Well. I’ll be able to show you better if you stand up. Now: stay where you are for the minute. You are the intrepid hero, and I the slogging ruffian.”

“I shall exercise my powers of imagination,” said Harriet gravely.

“Thank you. I approach you with felonious intent. I land — for the sake of argument — a blow to your ribs and, pressing my advantage, get within your guard. Then the uppercut.” A sudden and rapid movement brought his lordship’s left fist almost level with his wife’s jaw. “With a bit of luck, the laws of physics and the element of surprise combine to make it devastating.”

“How nice,” said his wife; and kissed him.

[oldshrewsburyian]

you (and reading Square Haunting which includes a Dorothy L Sayers mini biography) inspired me to pick up Have His Carcase after reading Strong Poison years ago and I am having such an absolute blast!! So witty and delightful and clever!

Oh, excellent! This is the thing about Dorothy L. Sayers: the novels are so witty and delightful and clever! The acerbic and sometimes heartbreaking social commentary just gets smuggled in.

[oldshrewsburyian]

Just wanted to say I've finally caved and ordered the first four Lord Peter Wimsey novels because of your Dorothy Sayers posts. FINE, I'll read these incredibly eloquent detective novels. What a hardship. (Sayers has been on the periphery of my book radar for a while, but you've given me the nudge I needed to actually pick up some of her works.)

I am delighted to know this. Have fun / brace yourself for a wild ride through the social history of 1920s London with its most traumatized fictional sleuth (affectionate.)

[oldshrewsburyian]

I'd like to inquire about "Care of Future Times" and/or "Only to Uncertain Days" please!

Thank you! "Only To Uncertain Days" is currently the title of a published one-shot, but I'm also keeping it as the placeholder for a canon-compliant Sam/Andrew future in the world of Foyle's War. I believe in the possibilities of that ship!

"Care of Future Times" is a Wimseyverse crossover with The Hour. I was sure I would finish it up quickly but it turns out I need to research 1950s crime more first. There's also the problem that it currently exists mostly as a self-indulgent excuse for exchanges like this:

Randall Brown moistens his lips before speaking. “Not, then, after all, a self-pleasing and humorous mind.” Lord Peter smiles, apparently incapable of taking offense. “I knew you’d know your Bacon.”

[oldshrewsburyian]

I would love to know more about "The Duchess of Denver's Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Christmas Party"!

Thank you! Helen, Duchess of Denver, faced with hosting her impossible brother-in-law, her irrepressible sister-in-law, and their even more impossible spouses for Christmas, sets out to compile a suitable guest list to cushion the blow, starting with one of Gerald's university friends and his wife, and expanding to include an artist whom Helen hopes to commission (and her husband.) The list is rounded out by a blameless family acquaintance and her husband, who is a bit nouveau but pleasant.

It all sounds perfectly reasonable, on the surface of it. Unfortunately she turns out to have filled her house with accused murderers (and one actual murderer.) Most people do not have a bad time! But Helen has a Very Bad Time.

[oldshrewsburyian]

I know I've asked before, but I still love the concept of The Duchess of Denver's Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Christmas Party. :-DDD

Thank you! I have orchestrated a guest list which looks perfectly tactful and reasonable, and results in chaos. Have a relatively normal snippet:

“Since your friend has excused himself, Gerald, you might make this gathering a great deal less uncomfortable by explaining why he’s giving such an excellent impression of Orestes while his wife droops about looking like one of the less spirited Lowood orphans.” “I’ve often wondered about the other Lowood orphans,” observed Charles. “They can’t all have been pious.” “Individually pitiable but collectively loathsome,” said Alleyn. “Like men selling encyclopedias.” “Stop being virtuous and tactful,” said Lord Peter sternly.

[oldshrewsburyian]

Might I request a brief fic of post wedding/kids/life, Peter and Harriet stealing a moment alone.

Have a just-post-"Talboys" drabble! The poem being riffed on is by Shelley, and is the same one that DLS uses in (if I recall correctly) The Chapter With The Punt in Gaudy Night.

*

“Passing wonderful,” said his lordship.

“Mm,” returned his wife, without raising her head.

“Hath then,” he demanded of the room at large, “the gloomy Power, whose reign is in the tainted sepulchers, seized…”

“I have seized a pillow,” said Harriet calmly, “and provoked, one glowing limb shall throw it at your head.”

“So bright, so fair, so wild a shape!” continued her husband, no less apparently enraptured, but nevertheless subsided onto the goose-feather bed. “Dare we hope,” he asked, after a moment, “that our household has reassumed its native dignity?”

“To stand immortal amid ruin. But a snake, Peter. Really."